


After the Party

by Persiflage



Series: Mashed Up Tropes Fics [10]
Category: Holby City
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bath Sex, Bathing/Washing, Canon Schmanon, Domestic Fluff, F/F, Implied Sexual Content, Mash-up, Newly established relationship, Originally Posted on Tumblr, POV Alternating, POV Outsider, Trope de Trope, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-14
Updated: 2020-11-14
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:35:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27553948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Persiflage/pseuds/Persiflage
Summary: Canon Divergence: Sian and Fleur are desperate to know if Bernie and Serena are lovers. The newly established couple are proving elusive.
Relationships: Serena Campbell/Bernie Wolfe
Series: Mashed Up Tropes Fics [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1960414
Comments: 4
Kudos: 67





	After the Party

**Author's Note:**

> Written for an Anon for the Mashed Up Tropes Meme on Tumblr, for the tropes: 35. Bathtub Fic and 76. Did They or Didn’t They?

“Well did they, or didn’t they?” asks Sian, sounding frustrated.

“I don’t know,” Fleur practically snaps back. “I just know that the shower was running and when the door opened a few minutes later Serena had that ‘cat that ate the canary’ look in her eyes, and Bernie looked more contented than I’ve ever seen her.”

“So they did, then,” Sian says.

“Maybe. If so it was very quick. They were gone less five minutes.”

Sian grunts. To tell the truth she’s feeling more frustrated than she can ever remember being and it’s all because Serena’s holding out on her with regard to her relationship to Bernie Wolfe. Hospital gossip has it that they became lovers after their colleague Adrian Fletcher was stabbed and nearly died. Some hospital gossips would have her believe that Serena and Bernie were caught in flagrante on the floor of the theatre after they’d performed life saving surgery on Adrian Fletcher, but she’s discounted that one as pure fantasy. There is no doubt in Sian’s mind, however, that the pair have become incredibly close, and they were already thick as thieves: making eyes at each other over their glasses of wine in Albie’s; walking so closely together down the corridors of the hospital that their elbows and shoulders brushed; bringing each other coffee and a pastry; working so seamlessly together in theatre that young Dr Digby described it as like watching a ballet.

She’s sitting in Fleur Fanshawe’s office on Obs and Gynae trying to discover whether Fleur knows any more concrete facts about the relationship between their mutual friend and Holby’s star trauma surgeon. They’re currently discussing what may or may not have happened last night at the birthday party Serena hosted for Raf di Lucca.

“I wish there was some way to find out for sure,” Sian says.

“I tried to take a peek into Serena’s bedroom last night,” Fleur admits, looking a little ashamed.

“Tried?” repeats Sian. “You mean you failed to get a look in there?”

Fleur sighs. “Serena had locked her door. I thought if I could get in there, I could check, you know, whether any of Bernie’s shirts are hanging in Serena’s wardrobe, or whether her underwear is in Serena chest of drawers. That would be a sure give away.”

The two women sigh heavily, irritated at being thwarted in their quest for knowledge.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

“I need a bath,” Serena mutters, still a little breathless after Bernie’s delightfully athletic wake up call. The party for Raf had run rather late the night before, and then she and Bernie had decided to celebrate their one month anniversary with some very energetic sex. Very loud, very energetic sex, in fact – which had made Serena feel a surge of relief that Jason had insisted on spending the weekend with Allan. He didn’t really enjoy large parties, so he hadn’t wanted to be here last night, then Allan had offered to take him to Oxford to see some new exhibition at the Ashmolean Museum and to visit the Pitt River Museum as well, so they’d headed off to Oxford as soon as Jason finished work the day before.

“Mmhmm.” Bernie’s hum – Serena’s not sure whether it’s agreement, pleasure, or simply a sound to acknowledge the fact that her lover spoke – vibrates against her thigh, where Bernie is currently resting her head.

“Do you want to join me?”

Bernie lifts her head, looking up at her with those deep, dark eyes that Serena too often thinks she might drown in. 

“Your eyes are very soulful,” she says, before Bernie can manage an answer to her question.

The blonde chuckles. “Just how drunk are you, still?” she asks with a teasing lilt.

Serena rolls her eyes. “I’m not that drunk.” She reaches down to toy with Bernie’s blonde locks, trying to detangle them. “Bath?”

“A bath sounds wonderful,” she answers. “Coffee?”

“Oh, that’s a must,” Serena says firmly, eliciting a chuckle.

“Okay. You start running the bath, I’ll go and make us some coffee.” She slides off the foot of the bed, completely indifferent to her nudity, and rummages around on the floor. After a moment she steps into her slippers, then slips on the mid-blue dress shirt she’d worn the night before and fastens the middle two buttons.

She steps to the side of the bed and leans down to kiss Serena, slow and languid, making heat pool between her thighs and desire coil in her belly.

“Back shortly,” she says after a final nip to Serena’s bottom lip, then she saunters out of the bedroom and Serena hears her trotting down the stairs. 

She sighs heavily, then peels herself from the bed, before moving into the bathroom to set the bath running, dropping in one of her favourite bath bombs. She leaves the water running, then moves back into the bedroom and starts to straighten it out. She collects their clothes, dropping their bras, her knickers, and Bernie’s boxer shorts and socks into the laundry hamper; hanging up her own dress and the tailored three-piece suit that Bernie had surprised her with, ready to go to the dry cleaners. She then strips the bed, bundling the bed linens into the laundry hamper, too, before she pulls out fresh bed linens from the drawer underneath the bed. She leaves the neat pile of sheets, pillowcases, and duvet cover on the seat of the armchair by the window, intending to get Bernie to assist her in remaking the bed as it will be quicker.

She moves into the bathroom and notes that the water’s getting dangerously high –too much more and it’ll run out of the bath the minute they get in. She frowns, wondering what’s keeping Bernie, then hears the bedroom door click shut. Turning, she sees Bernie moving towards her, a laden tray held carefully between her hands. She cocks an eyebrow at the blonde, who gives her one of her devastating smirks.

“We need to refuel after last night and this morning, so I’ve brought breakfast as well as coffee.”

Inhaling, Serena smiles at the scent of coffee, pain au chocolat, and bacon – she presumes Bernie’s made her signature bacon butties. “What a thoughtful woman you are,” she says, and moves back into the bathroom. 

“I do my best,” Bernie says as she sets the tray down on the closed toilet lid.

“And a very acceptable best it is, too,” Serena assures her. She climbs into the bath, then holds out her hand to Bernie, who quickly unfastens her two shirt buttons, then slides her arms from the sleeves before tossing the shirt in the direction of the laundry hamper. 

“I’ll pick that up afterwards,” she says, clasping Serena’s hand, then climbing carefully into the bath. “Ah, that’s good.” 

Serena agrees: the water is the perfect temperature and with a delightful scent to it thanks to the bath bomb, and it now holds one Berenice Griselda Wolfe, her favourite person in the whole world, besides Elinor and Jason. Even better, there is coffee, a bacon butty, and a pain au chocolat in the offing.

Serena sinks down into the water, glad that when she remodelled her bathroom a few years ago, she’d added this frankly enormous bath since it’s easily big enough for the two of them. She grins as Bernie grabs the tray and carefully positions it on top of the wire bath rack so they can easily get at their breakfast.

“By the way, I spotted Fleur trying to sneak into our room last night.”

Serena chortles. “She and Sian have been going crazy trying to find out whether or not we’re actually lovers.”

Bernie grins over the top of her coffee mug. “Sian asked me a number of very pointed questions last night. Naturally, I didn’t give her the satisfaction of answering any of them in a meaningful way.”

“I’m glad to hear it.” 

They eat and drink in a warm, companionable silence, which gradually grows thicker as their undeniable sexual chemistry begins to exert itself yet again. 

Once all the coffee has been drunk and their bacon butties and pain au chocolat eaten Bernie sets the tray back on the closed lid of the toilet, then carefully sets aside the bath rack as well, before standing up and turning her back on Serena, then she sinks back down into the bath, settling herself between her lover’s invitingly spread legs.

“Mmm.” Serena hums against the side of Bernie’s neck. “This is very nice.”

“It is,” Bernie agrees, lounging back with a very obvious look of contentment on her face.

Serena licks a stripe up the side of Bernie’s neck, then back down again, before nipping at the flesh in the crook of her neck. “Have you ever had sex in the bath, before?”

Her lover laughs a little. “No. Marcus was strictly a missionary position in the bed kind of bloke.”

“Good god, no wonder you left him!”

Bernie starts laughing, her ‘goose honk’ echoing amazingly around the room thanks to its acoustics. “Fairly sure I left him because I finally admitted to myself that I’m a lesbian,” she says once she has recovered enough breath to speak.

“Mmm. I suppose you did, but what a dull stick your ex is.”

“Unlike you,” Bernie comments as a hand cups her right breast, brushing her palm repeatedly over the already taut nipple. “You are very adventurous.”

Serena chuckles filthily in her ear. “Oh, I really am.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

The Monday following Raf di Lucca’s birthday party Fleur practically falls out of her office window when she sees Berenice Wolfe’s car pull up in Serena Campbell’s parking spot, then the two women climb out and have a brief conversation, before walking across the car park to the hospital, their fingers tangled together between their bodies.

She grabs her phone from her desk and franticly dials Sian Kors’ number, practically screaming down the line, “They did! They did!” as soon as Sian answers.

“Thank god for that,” Sian sighs.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on Tumblr [here](https://pers-books.tumblr.com/post/629698621291560960/i-cant-get-enogh-of-these-mash-ups-you-write-so).


End file.
